Fresh Trouble For Sanjay Dutt As Maharashtra Government Gets 2 Weeks To Justify Dutt’s Early Release From Jail

Fresh trouble for Sanjay Dutt as Bombay High Court gives just 2 weeks time to justify why Dutt was released early from the jail.

As we all know Bollywood actor Sanjay Dutt was sentenced to five years in Pune’s Yerwada prison for illegal possession and destruction of an AK-56 rifle. During his jail sentence, Dutt was out on parole for quite a few times. Then on account of a ‘good conduct’, he was freed from the jail eight months early that the actual jail release date. Well, looks like this decision by Maharashtra government has not fallen into Dutt’s favour and has dragged him to the court again.

According to reports, Pune resident and activist Pradeep Bhalekar filed public interest litigation (PIL), challenging Dutt’s early release and questioning the frequent paroles he was granted. Bhalekar through his advocate Nitin Satpude, has also mentioned that around 400 prisoners despite having a good conduct report from the prison authorities, are not granted remission or early release.

Now reportedly, the Bombay high court has given the Maharashtra government two weeks to brief the advocate general and to file an affidavit explaining why Sanjay Dutt was granted an early release in connection with the 1993 Mumbai blasts case.

Maharashtra state’s Advocate General Ashutosh Kumbhakoni has asked a couple of weeks extra time from the court in order to file an affidavit and clarify doubts on the same.

During the last hearing, a bench of justices RM Savant and Sadhana Jadhav questioned the Maharashtra government, “Was the deputy inspector general (prisons) consulted or did the jail superintendent directly send his recommendation to the governor? Isn’t there a uniform procedure followed for all prisoners who receive good conduct reports?”.

“How did the authorities assess that Dutt’s conduct was good? When did they get the time to make such assessment when he was out on parole half the time?” the bench had asked.